Stuffed Superdud: Bumpy road to respectable lifting

[stuffedsuperdud]

Coach hadn't trained in weeks, and decided to compensate by going balls to the wall yesterday, doing snatches, cleans, rack jerks, squats, presses, and deadlifts. He tried to finish by playing with the hex bar and.........pulled a groin with 100kg on the bar.

When Pan-Am and I got in, the owner was there and said, "Hey he was in a lot of pain this morning and was in a really bad mood, so you guys are screwed!" Turns out we got the opposite: he just wanted to go home and lie down, so instead of maxing out CJ, we just had a regular day:

Clean + jerk 1+3
40kgx1
50x1
66x1x2
77x1x2
88x1x3

CJ:
100x1

Weights are low, but coach is happy with the vastly improved jerk and recovery. Turns out, the problem with my right side wasn't as much a wrist issue as it was a problem with the triceps tendon and the forearm, which rolling helped immensely. Lockout feels much better and is painless for the first time in a long time.

Clean super high pulls:
90kgx3x6

Squats:
70kg x 5
110x5
140x3
150x3
160x3

"Okay back to 140!"
"Heh...can I try to do it for 12?"
"No! That's fucking stupid. What's the point? Okay do for 10."
".......HUH? You're serious?"
"Yes!"

140x10 Man so this is a regular thing now?

"What's the purpose of 10's?"
"Well, sometimes if you really want to make your legs grow, you have to attack them hard! Maybe once a week, do 2 sets of 10 at 75% after your regular sets."

I know 10's aren't popular around here, but for you RTS nerds, I'm guessing this means volume pileup? Well whatever it is, looks like I'll be doing them a lot more these days. Today 140, tomorrow 200. Might this be the return of some sort of Volume Day???? If so, I'll probably try to have a bit more fun with them, e.g. instead of 5x5, I might just fuck around until it adds up to 25 reps? I've done this before with one of Jim Steel's programs, where he had stuff like "80% x 60 reps, any way you want." We'll see.

Speaking of high rep fun, this guy makes our "Race to 200kg squat" game look especially pathetic. brb time to lift pink 2lb dumbbells to tone and sculpt, and then hit the locker room for a refreshing douche.





Ooh hey I saw Ex Machina today. While not totally original in its discussion of artificial intelligence, it did raise for me some fun new points about what, if anything, distinguishes our minds from AI, and if nothing else, it is extremely beautifully made. Also (VERY MILD SPOILER, scroll over to see), subtly makes fun of creepy guys with Asian fetishes.

One thing bothered me though, and that was co-star Oscar Isaac. He's a tremendous actor whose career is finally taking off, but he was supposed to be kind of menacing and threatening, and was the villain (well, more like anti-villain) for much of the film. For emphasis, several scenes showed him doing lame dumbbell exercises at his sorry-ass home gym while behaving like the typical corporate asshat (shaking off last night's alcoholism with an obnoxious juice drink served in a tall and narrow glass).

Well, this is how he looked:


Not exactly scary! The whole time, I figured if things got out of hand, it was a simple matter of just tackling him. Really the only way that wouldn't work would be if he busted out with that CEO karate that they sometimes have, performed while quoting The Art of War. Otherwise, boom, done.

Oh well. I guess all I have to say at this point is, he'd better start following Huge Jackman to the gym for a few months before playing Apocalypse in the next X-Men movie.

[George Christiansen]

One thing bothered me though, and that was co-star Oscar Isaac. He's a tremendous actor whose career is finally taking off, but he was supposed to be kind of menacing and threatening, and was the villain (well, more like anti-villain) for much of the film. For emphasis, several scenes showed him doing lame dumbbell exercises at his sorry-ass home gym while behaving like the typical corporate asshat (shaking off last night's alcoholism with an obnoxious juice drink served in a tall and narrow glass).

Oh well. I guess all I have to say at this point is, he'd better start following Huge Jackman to the gym for a few months before playing Apocalypse in the next X-Men movie.

I watched M. Night Shananigan's 'Unbreakable' again last night and had similar thoughts when they use Bruce Willis' character benching a paint can or two over 300lbs. as some indication that he was super human. He struggled for a single. Sad.

[idlehands]

I watched M. Night Shananigan's 'Unbreakable' again last night and had similar thoughts when they use Bruce Willis' character benching a paint can or two over 300lbs. as some indication that he was super human. He struggled for a single. Sad.

I thought for unbreakable he struggled with every single but just kept getting it. Like he was strong enough but didn't believe he could do it so kept fighting his reality. I thought they were showing sky's the limit he's outta weight.

As to ex machina I didn't get anything new outta it. I thought the villain was creepy and eccentric more than intimidating.

That's interesting they chose to throw his weights in essentially the living room in such an architecturally awesome house. The character would have had better attention to that detail methinks

[George Christiansen]

I thought for unbreakable he struggled with every single but just kept getting it. Like he was strong enough but didn't believe he could do it so kept fighting his reality. I thought they were showing sky's the limit he's outta weight.

He did run out of weight but he also went from doubles to a single with the last weight. Plus he was genuinely straining. It would have took a little more than faith in himself to push to 500lbs+.

[idlehands]

He did run out of weight but he also went from doubles to a single with the last weight. Plus he was genuinely straining. It would have took a little more than faith in himself to push to 500lbs+.

Yah but 495 for a double w suicide grip is ok right ?
http://youtu.be/OIP0iqySMLo

[George Christiansen]

Yah but 495 for a double w suicide grip is ok right ?
http://youtu.be/OIP0iqySMLo

I'm personally impressed. I just wouldn't be sewing an "S" on my shirt though.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Yahtzee.... I thought I was off today, but I was jolted awake at 7AM, after 3 hours of sleep, by CG wondering where I was, and was quickly hit by a jolt of DOMS in my quads and hammies. I managed to stumble around the kitchen shoving random calories into my face, filled up the camelbak, and was out the door.

We went to a different trail this time and planned for what looked like an easy 8 mile walk followed by lunch. "Should be home by 11!" Not so fast, buster.

In my haste, I had neglected to print paper topographical maps, and figured we could just use the crude cartoons posted every mile or so along the way. Well, this worked fine for a while, but there was a critical junction near the end at which the provided "map" was extremely inadequate. We ended up making a wrong turn, became completely disoriented, ended up in a deserted area, and climbed a bunch of dead end hills to nowhere while searching for a way out of the canyon in which we found ourselves trapped. This was not good for the DOMS.

We eventually escaped by climbing an extremely steep ravine thinger we found......and stumbled facefirst into a super wealthy residential neighborhood, surprising a lady and her dog in the process; she found our non-plight hilarious and pointed us into the right direction. Turns out we were never more than a mile away from civilization on all sides while we were "trapped." Stupid stupid stupid.

CG was like, "Heh...how dumb would it have been to die in some rich guy's backyard?"

Final result was about 12 miles, with LOTS of hills, mostly unnecessary ones, and a final mile in which we hiked through that rich neighborhood to get back to the trailhead. Now calories and ice for the legs.

[Simon Rest]

i did a similar thing a few years back while on holiday with my wifes family. they went ahead, we took a wrong turn, found ourselves no longer in the nature reserve, but in some backwater suburb. followed a small track down hill which led to a freeway. we ran accross it and were on the edge of a town,conveniently accross from a nice little pub. when her family rang to see where we were we were 2 drinks in.

[PackMule]

140x10 Man so this is a regular thing now?

"What's the purpose of 10's?"
"Well, sometimes if you really want to make your legs grow, you have to attack them hard! Maybe once a week, do 2 sets of 10 at 75% after your regular sets."

I know 10's aren't popular around here, but for you RTS nerds, I'm guessing this means volume pileup? Well whatever it is, looks like I'll be doing them a lot more these days. Today 140, tomorrow 200. Might this be the return of some sort of Volume Day???? If so, I'll probably try to have a bit more fun with them, e.g. instead of 5x5, I might just fuck around until it adds up to 25 reps? I've done this before with one of Jim Steel's programs, where he had stuff like "80% x 60 reps, any way you want." We'll see.

Don't give a shit what the nerds think, the biggest dudes at the gym hit shit tons of reps, not worried about specificity or efficiency. Just bust their ass.

[stuffedsuperdud]

Some days you're the bear, some days you're the horny salmon he snares as it tries to bounce its way into the spawning pool.....

The events of the past several days finally came to a head: work has been pretty stressful + I am on my feet all day doing wet bench work, sleep has been poor, and I'm still sore from Saturday's misadventure. My protein intake over the past several days have also been low, around 100g a day, and I've been making up the difference with carbs.....so here comes a shitstorm.

Snatch:
I knew during warmups that today wasn't going to end well. Everything felt very stiff and sore, and I just wanted to go lie down. Coach was like, "hey stop wasting time and start lifting!" and I was like, "Ugh....trying...."

20kg x 5
40x3x2
50x3x2
60x3x2
70x3
80x.....shit.
I missed this 5 times and made it once. Just couldn't find it in me to do a beeeeg pull. Coach yelled at me a little for being so slow.
70x3

I was like, "I think I'm still tired. I stupidly went hiking up some hills on Saturday." He went, "What? Stupid excuse. I think that stuff is good for you!" and then he told some story of "obstacle courses" they ran by navigating the snowy forests outside their training camp in the Polish mountains.

Muscle snatch:
50kgx3
60x3x2
66x0,0
60x3x2
Just not feeling it today......

Front squat (weird #s because I was working in with someone else)
145x5
165x5
225x5
275x3

....and then, stupidity: the gym has a leaderboard that tracks everyone's front squat, bench, DL, PC, pullups, and pushups. Kind of a random combo, yea, but the front squat I can sort of get. It definitely hits the shoulders and upper back much harder than regular squats, and Starr himself said that back in the old days, "How much ya squat" mean front squat, right?

Well, in my weight category, the 1RM PR is 365lbs and the rep PR is 225lb x20, put there by a former college tight end who pushed bobsleds for a while after football. 365 is out of the question, but coach thought maybe I could take a shot at the rep PR. I just wanted to quietly do it and leave, but they made me formally weigh in and then set themselves up to check my reps for depth. While this happened, a haze of people pooled up around the area including, to my chagrin, both the Hot Girls. Coach was like, "Come on! 21! 3 sets of 5, 2 sets of 3 and you are done!" Eeeep.

I did:
225x15(13?) Rep PR either way but still a catastrophic failure.
Abnormal level of volume is for you, Mr. Moye.

I thought I only did thirteen, but I was kind of cross-eyed, dizzy, and delirious at the end, and the watchers said it was 15 so 15 it is. "You were only 6 away!" Ugh....next time. The damn thing is, my legs weren't tired at all, but my upper back and arms were on fire. Coach was like, "Well good now we know your weak point. Upper back needs to improve!"

This sort of confirms my hypothesis that FS is a much better assessment of sn/cj than BS: in BS, you can get away with a weak point up there, but in FS, like with sn/cj, a weak upper back screws you up bigtime. Anyhoo it's a few hours later and my legs don't feel like anything, but my upper back is furious with me already. Tomorrow is going to be so fun.

Going to hit this as hard as I can for the next few months. 180 FS / 200 BS by summer?

BTW I weighed in at 105kg on the dot with my shoes on. Kind of disappointing since I was hoping to be sub 100, but my waist is now down another inch to about 32" and I've been getting compliments for the first time ever so maybe it's a net weight gain from muscle? One can hope.